The Extent of Agricultural Land Conversion in Punjab: Impact on Production Conditions of Agriculture

This study measures the extent of agricultural land conversion for the non-agriculture uses in Punjab, and its consequences on production conditions of agriculture itself and food security at the national level. Punjab is a landlocked economy, but the state has a large chunk of fertile and irrigated land. Land productivity in Punjab normally retains at peak level throughout the country. The contribution of the state to meet the national foodgrains requirement is still very important, but recent trends showed that due to the rapidly increasing price of land and the requirement of land for non-agricultural uses, prime agricultural land was being transformed from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector in Punjab. Since the area under forests has more or less stabilised and minor categories have been reduced to the minimum level, in future all land which will be going for non-agricultural uses will be at the cost of Net Area Sown which ultimately a direct loss of food grains production as agriculture was highly concentrated to cereals. At a time when diversification of agriculture was a concerned issue, foodgrains production in the state is still increasing at an impressive rate despite this ever increasing the loss of fertile agricultural land because the farmers continue with the increasing area under wheat-rice monoculture at cost of the area under other crops. Thus, the land development for the non-farm sector in the state like Punjab should be planned in such a way that the agricultural sector itself and food security of the nation must not be affected.